


Toxcatl

by placentalmammal



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/pseuds/placentalmammal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vulpes/F!Courier in an AU where the Legion was based on the Aztec, rather than the Romans. More-or-less historically accurate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toxcatl

For twenty days, the Courier had lived as Huixtocihuatl, the goddess of salt and wife to Tezcatlipoca.

It was for love of Tezcatlipoca that she had asked to be chosen as Huixtocihuatl's ixiptla-when she had first met him, he had been a man, overseeing the destruction of the city of Nipton. He had been acting for the glory of the gods, securing sacrifices for initiation of the temple that was to be constructed on Hoover Dam after the Mexica had driven the NCR from the Mojave.

That was how she justified her attraction-he wasn't motivated by sadism or madness, but by religious conviction. He was fanatic in his devotion to the gods (it was why he had been chosen as Tezcatlipoca's ixiptla), sincere in his belief that the world be unmade unless humans paid tribute to the gods. He hadn't simply slaughtered the people of Nipton and left their carcasses to rot in the sun, he had captured them and ensured that their deaths would serve to placate the gods.

She didn't begin to doubt him until after the Mexica's victory at Hoover Dam. There had been tremendous talk of sacrifice during the construction of the temple, but it wasn't until after the first body had gone over the side of the Dam that she realized what she had done.

They cut their victim's still-beating hearts from their chest, mutilated their bodies, and cast the mangled corpses into the Colorado. She had heard rumors of cannibalism and brutality, but had dismissed them as NCR propaganda.

Sometime later, in the month of May, her husband had been chosen as Tezcatlipoca. For a year, he had served as ixiplta, wearing fine robes and feathered headdresses, jade in his nose and ears, gold and silver around his neck. He ceased to be her husband, and instead became a god. Their union was dissolved unceremoniously, and she had to watch as he played his flute and ate the flesh of sacrifices, knowing that he would be sacrificed next May, when Toxcatl came around again.

She still loved him, despite everything, and when time came to chose the women who would serve as the ixipltas of Tezcatlipoca's wives-Xochiquetzal, Xilonen, Atlatonan, and Huixtocihuatl-she appealed to Montezuma directly. She had won the war for him, served him loyally, given her husband over to him for sacrifice. All she wanted was to spend one last month with him before he died.

Montezuma granted her request. There were whispers that she was unworthy to serve as ixiplta, but no one dared contradict their lord directly. Even as the priests wailed that her selection would lead to ruin, she was cleansed and transformed from Courier to goddess.

Unworthy though she may have been, the Courier was not stupid. She would spend 20 days at her husband's side before he was sacrificed at the end of Toxcatl. She would spend another month as Huixtocihuatl, and she would be sacrificed during Tecuilhuitontli.

She was damned as soon as her selection was made final, but she consoled herself with the knowledge that her death would serve to placate the gods.


End file.
